Oubliette
by Atthla
Summary: Kurogane was torn between his wish to protect and his need to destroy. Kurogane x Syaoran


**Oubliette  
Author: Atthla**

**Pairing: **Kurogane x RSyaoran with a dash of KuroFai and maybe SyaoSaku.

**Warning: **TONS of SPOILERS throughout the series until the most recent chapters. So many that it's safe to say that if you mind any amount of spoiler at all, get away from this fic. Like, right now. Oh, and this story is dark and slightly lemony and has swearwords everywhere. Don't say that I haven't given a fair warning.

**Rating:** R to NC-17. You know what to expect, don't you?

**Timeline: **Not set in any universe that appeared in the manga, but I'd like to think that it's somewhere after Tokyo but before Infinity. I know there shouldn't be any gap there (except that detour to the village Syaoran has destroyed), but let's just pretend that there is. The new group has been traveling together **for a while **and Sakura is still okay (woah, SPOILER), Kurogane still has Souhi, Fay's eye still blue…

Fanfic-wise, this should be set after 'The Worth of A Smile' but Infinity-Celes-Nihon is, in my opinion, one tightly-knitted arc. I can't really break them down and have something happening in between, so this is an entirely different story. I just want to bring over that semi-affection I have implanted in Kurogane from my last fic. I hope it isn't too confusing.

**Summary: **Kurogane was torn between his wish to protect and his need to destroy.

**Notes:** This is my attempt, however poor it might be, to encourage every closet KuroSyao fan out there to come out and openly profess their love to this rare but hot pairing because, hey, new year is dawning. CLAMP may have decided on SyaoSaku and KuroFai, but if KuroSyao is hot, then it's hot. Let's repeat that together.

**KuroSyao is hot.**

-----

The hammer fell on them harder than he had anticipated.

Kurogane threw a furtive glance to the other side of the room. Sakura hadn't stopped shaking and the side of the couch she curled in was soaked wet from her drenched clothes. She held herself tightly, both arms winding around her frail form as if trying to shield her from an onslaught of brutal attacks. Next to her sat Fay, his hips close to her back but not touching. The mage never strayed far from her side – always there, not a word falling from his tightly pressed lips – but Kurogane suspected that he needed the comfort of another person just as much as the princess.

It felt like he was looking at a picture, or a tragic act being played on a stage. He was an outsider, watching from sideline as the main actors faced the storm of life and drowned themselves in despair. This strange impression really bothered the ninja, but he realized that at least one member of their twisted, little group had to stay sane on the wake of this…

…disaster.

Kurogane mentally cringed and returned his attention to the raging storm. Souhi was a comforting weight on his arm as he stood in front of the window, watching the angry torrents continue to wreak havoc outside. He hated to feel indebted, even to something as omnipotent as nature, but he knew that the storm helped to keep the demons away. And as much as he hated to admit this, Kurogane realized that he wouldn't have been able to deal with them all, what with their coming in that large number of groups and focusing their attack on the princess who was unable to protect herself at the moment.

Not that he could blame her. Maybe he didn't know much about love, but he could pretty much guess how it felt to see someone you loved coming at you with nothing but an intention to seize and destroy, the sword on his hand no longer an instrument to protect but to kill.

The ninja was angry. He should have been able to fend the demons off alone, but no, the kid's presence had distracted him. That and he had noticed how it was affecting Fay. The mage stood in front of a paralyzed Sakura, shielding her body with his own but doing practically nothing.

It was yet another reason why Kurogane was so angry with himself. He had underestimated the power of fear. He hadn't realized that Fay had never really gotten over the shock at having his magic taken away in that brutal way. The mage wore the same false smile, the one he despised so much and yet he couldn't say anything this time because he knew it was him who put that smile back on Fay's face. They had never really talked again, not after what had happened in Tokyo, and despite how he appeared in front of others, Kurogane was scared shitless.

He didn't regret it. He didn't _do_ regret. If he could go back and repeat the whole process, he would have offered himself and saved Fay's life again. That it cost the mage his humanity was a price Kurogane would pay for the rest of his life. He didn't mind. There were always certain sacrifices to gain something – the witch had made it very clear.

It didn't make him hate the whole situation any less though.

Everything had been so wrong since the moment they had arrived in this country. It wasn't a pretty place, infested by beasts and demons and cursed by a succession of unfriendly weathers. But it would have been nothing. Injuries were not new acquaintances for them, the princess included. Continuous battles and lots of blood, tears, sacrifices had toughened them a great deal. They could plough their way through and just go on with the feather business as usual. It would have been nothing.

If not for one tiny little detail.

Or not so tiny maybe.

In fact, it wasn't tiny at all, because Kurogane had learnt through the hard way that dealing with heartless clones seldom begot anything but mountain-sized problems. Add to the mix a horde of sharp-clawed, teeth, tongue, whatever, monsters and they had the perfect example of a debacle at its worst.

Oh, and the other kid too. Mustn't forget him. He was that last touch of perfection as everything had simply gone from worst to hopelessly irredeemable once he had appeared on the scene. For some strange reasons, clones tended to be ten times more vicious around their original and when you talked about this particular clone, vicious was a bolded word with seven capital letters.

But then the storm came and the monsters grew panicked, fleeing here and there or just going berserk and generally creating a greater pandemonium from the already existent chaos. Seeing their chance, Kurogane grabbed the princess and the petrified mage and shouted for the boy and the white manju to follow him because as unbeatable as he was, someone had to be not only retarded but also completely out of his mind to challenge Mother Nature.

What he then discovered once they were already save behind the walls of their home was that the boy – and the manju – hadn't fucking followed him.

Sakura was upset. Fay didn't look at him, but they never really looked at each other anymore. They would have gone back out there in a heartbeat but the wind – or gale, because winds weren't supposed knock you off your feet – didn't allow them to. And so the princess slumped to the couch, too shaken, too defeated, and the mage sat next to her, silently offering and taking what he could. It left Kurogane to stand alone by the window and mentally mutilate himself with anger, hatred, frustration, anxiety.

If the kid didn't return.

If the kid was found dead.

If the kid…

"You know," a voice, low enough to cover the tremors it might contain but also loud enough to override the howling storm, startled him. He turned away from the window, too eager to run from his unfinished thought. He didn't want to finish that thought. Fay was looking at him from across the room, single blue eye glassy in the darkening light. "The storm is letting up," he said slowly, all too tentatively to Kurogane's liking. "Maybe we can start looking for him."

The suggestion seemed to rouse the princess from the depth of her depression. Her eyes flicked up, searching his hard gaze, and Kurogane was glad to have an excuse to look away to the window. He knew she didn't blame him – it wasn't in her nature to blame anyone but herself. Guilt, however, was a stubborn mistress that lived in her own world and utterly impervious to the opinion of others. If he had failed, then he had failed and she said screw what everybody else was thinking.

Kurogane did exactly just that.

"It's still too dangerous," he finally said, his tone decisively flat. The downpour might have let up a little, but he couldn't say the same about the fierce, howling gale. Sakura and Fay wouldn't be able to do anything against it. Perhaps he could, but as much as Kurogane wanted to go and ease that painful throbbing in his chest for leaving Syaoran behind – or worsen it, depending on what state he would find the boy in later – he couldn't leave the princess and the mage as they were now. Uglier things might happen and wasn't it better to lose one than three?

The overwhelming urge to curse, condemn, doom himself returned with a vengeance. He would have succumbed to one of them if the corner of his eyes hadn't caught something.

_What the…_

Every muscle in his body screamed and sprang into action, and the next thing he knew, he was already out there battling the storm. Raindrops were whipping his skin like cold talons and the wind was ferociously pushing him back, but he only had to see the kid, hunched, almost nothing against the wrath of nature and yet still stubbornly stumbling forward, to feel that surge of power thickly mingled with shame and forget about the wind altogether. Kurogane didn't say anything when he finally reached the boy – _too fucking unbelievable_ – and only pulled the smaller body close to his, feeling cold fingers desperately holding onto him as they stumbled back to the house.

The mage was already waiting at the doorstep, ready to close the door once they already got in. Inside, the warmth was almost suffocating and the unreadable look on Fay's face didn't help. Neither did the silent tears running down Sakura's cheeks. Syaoran was a shivering mess, his face too pale, his skin too cold, and Kurogane had to struggle with all his might not to holler at him.

"You're fucking crazy," he hissed, insides numb with cold relief. Waves of guilt quickly overcame every other expression on the kid's face, but before the word 'I'm sorry' could leave his mouth, something wriggled under his shirt and Mokona jumped out.

"Syaoran!"

"I'm okay." It was definitely a lie. His voice was too faint and he hadn't stopped shivering, but the kid didn't seem to care. His amber eyes were focused on the princess, on the wet tracks on her face, on the question she had not even given voice to.

"He got away," he murmured and it would have been a prelude to an apology had it not sounded so dead. "I couldn't…"

The words trailed off and the small body swayed forward once before Kurogane caught it. He barely heard Sakura's surprised gasp or Mokona frantically calling the boy's name, his whole concentration spent on the attempt to keep panic down and let common sense come first. The kid's breathing was shallow and he was impossibly cold, but the ninja couldn't find any life-threatening injury, only a few bruises and small cuts. For someone who had just survived his clone's brutal assault and a long walk through the storm, he was relatively unharmed.

"He's all right," Kurogane said, letting the breath he had unconsciously been holding go. "Probably just tired. He should rest."

Fay nodded and Sakura bit her lips. He could see the guilt in her eyes, haunting and weighing her conscience like one of those dark clouds outside. She hadn't meant to hurt him, but the deed was done anyway. Kurogane decided not to say anything. He picked the boy up, the wet clothes a cold, dead weight in his arms, and murmured before heading to an empty bedroom, "You should too."

They were a complete, fucking mess.

-----

It was already late at night when Kurogane discovered that the kid had a fever.

Not just any fever. It was the kind that made him flinch and curse loudly because no one should have been able to live with body temperature that high. Syaoran, however, once more proved himself to be a living anomaly as he lay there, burning up but still maintaining a regular – if slightly too fast – set of breathing.

One eye cracked open, followed a moment later by its counterpart, and Kurogane found himself swearing again – inwardly this time. Misted by both fever and remnants of sleep, they slowly focused on him. The ninja waited, letting the boy process everything by himself. The bedroom. The angry storm beating down the roof. The steady thrum of unpleasantness in his body.

"I'm sick." It was not a question, not a statement, only an echo of raw disbelief in rough, scraping voice.

"Yeah." Kurogane swallowed, not liking his tone of voice at all. Too much emotion in that one word. It was only a fever.

An unnaturally high fever, but that wasn't the point.

The room fell silent. Syaoran seemed to encounter some difficulty in accepting the fact that a fever had managed to bring him down and the quiet mull on the subject was reflected on his face. Kurogane was drowned in his own thought. They didn't have any medicine. He could go find a doctor in a town nearby, but since this abandoned house they currently dwelled in was a little out-of-the-way, he wasn't sure he could get the doctor, if he found one, to come with him in this weather.

But the kid needed medical treatment. Kurogane glanced at the flushed face and got up from his chair, intent on bringing back a doctor whatever the hell it took when warm fingers reached for his hand.

"Don't," the voice sounded broken. Syaoran looked up at him, his eyes almost pleading. "Don't tell them."

He didn't answer and the sick boy didn't wait before slipping back into unconsciousness.

-----

Fay's tongue lapped across his skin in what could be considered a sensual gesture, or an affectionate one. Kurogane knew that it meant absolutely nothing. The mage was only making sure that not a drop of blood was spilled and if it reawaked old memories or long-suppressed desires, it was his own business.

He felt numb. It wasn't the usual sluggishness that always set in every time they finished the feeding ritual. It was the other side of helplessness. He knew he should be doing something – looking for a doctor maybe, or a medicine to help Syaoran fighting against his illness. Anything. But the storm was releasing its greater fury yet and he couldn't even open the door without getting blasted off his feet. The healthiest person in the group and he couldn't do a fucking shit. So fucking useless.

At the first drop of anger, Kurogane closed his eyes, concentrating on the feel of Fay's mouth sucking his blood, drawing wisps of life out of him. He wanted that numbness again. He didn't want to think about the kid. For just a moment, he didn't want the whole world to exist.

But the mouth left him with one final lick. The ninja opened his eyes, a string of curses on the tip of his tongue. In front of him, Fay slowly stood up from his kneeling position, too graceful to be human, and his eye, gradually returning to the softer shades of blue, was focused on him.

"He's sick, isn't he?"

Kurogane decided that he didn't want to know how the mage had obtained that knowledge. He hadn't said anything about Syaoran, but this 'bond' he shared with Fay seemed to benefit one party more than the other.

_Benefit_. He almost cringed. It wasn't even the right word. He was disgusted that he had thought of it as anything but a curse.

"The kid's coming down with a fever," he answered blandly and got up from the couch, fending off the wave of dizziness that came with the action. Fay's eye never left him and Kurogane, out of some sick, twisted sense of sympathy, or maybe self-pity, he really didn't know anymore, added, "There's nothing you can do."

He knew he didn't imagine the flash of… something in the other man's eye. A part of him rejoiced. The rest died. Falling from the top of his towering guilt with a sickening crash.

"I…" Fay finally looked away and gazed down at his linked hands, his voice tight, "if I could–"

"Don't worry about him," Kurogane cut him, brusquer than he intended, because he was losing his control everywhere. "You just take care of the princess. I'll handle the kid."

"I don't hate him," Fay whispered, a note of desperation in his voice, so painfully intense that it was obvious who he was trying to convince.

"I know."

But no one forgave that easily.

-----

The next day passed like a blur to Kurogane. The storm hadn't let up and he spent the better part of the morning watching the kid and the showered window alternately, often spending more than he should have on the former, tracing those flushed cheeks with his eyes. He didn't even try to catch himself doing it again. It wasn't a question of control. It was the kid, there, lying sick and not looking at him with those usual fierce brown eyes.

Just before noon, Mokona came. Kurogane relinquished his post to watch Syaoran for a couple of minutes and wandered to the kitchen. Fay was there, filling four empty bowls with stew from a bubbling pot. He politely asked if Syaoran was getting better, careful not to look at him, not even when the other man gave his answer in an icy manner. Sakura also had a little fever, he said, but that wasn't what worried him the most.

"She's really taking it hard," the mage said, putting the pot back on the stove, and turned to look at him, anxiety reflected in his eye.

"Because it's hard for her," Kurogane heard himself replying flatly. A mere stating of truth. Sometimes he really hated the fact that he could sound so callously indifferent, especially when he didn't want to.

"But she is blaming herself," Fay's voice gained a hard, almost accusing edge in it. "She feels that… she deserves it. To be forgotten because she has forgotten."

A raw, icy coldness pierced the insides of his stomach and settled in his bones, mixing with the more familiar sparks of anger. _To be forgotten because she has forgotten._ That was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. And he had thought that the princess was at least intelligent.

"It wasn't her fault," he snarled, the heat already eclipsing the chill. "The kid couldn't even think for himself! He's a fucking doll!"

"We both realize that," Fay said with a degree of calmness that seemed so inappropriate for the moment, "but Sakura-chan doesn't."

Kurogane hissed angrily and started to stomp off to the princess's bedroom when a strong grip on his upper arm stopped him.

"Not now," the mage told him, quietly but firmly. "She needs to sort this out by herself. You can talk to her later, when the wound isn't bleeding anymore."

And when would that be, he wanted to retort, but the stern look on Fay's face shut him up. The other man knew Sakura better, and yes, he would be lying if he said that this fact didn't sting, but it wasn't the time for such gripes. He breathed out noisily, itching to hit something. They were walking on this narrow bridge, crafted from crystals and beams of ice, and with each step the bridge gave away a little. Measured caution didn't suit him. It scraped against his skin, made him bleed with stinging impatience, but he was now here, with some of the very few people he didn't mind suffering for.

He forced himself to wait. Imagine what Tomoyo would say if she saw him now. Although she probably would just titter and leave him to stew in his own mortification alone.

"They're both equally hurt," Fay added with a wistful tone, his eye staring off into distance. Kurogane felt the familiar wave of irritation again. Lately the mage didn't have to do much to piss him off.

"And you're not?"

And that smile he hated so _fucking_ much made another appearance.

"What are you talking about, Kurogane? Of course I'm fine."

The ninja grabbed two steaming bowls from the table and left the kitchen. He couldn't look at it.

-----

"What the hell are you doing?"

The kid was standing next to the sink with a lost expression when he rushed in, sharp splinters of glass surrounding his bare feet. Kurogane hadn't known what to expect when he heard the breaking sound coming from the kitchen. He had just arrived, cold to the bone from the rainstorm outside and mood sullen since the only apothecary in town had told him that they had run out of fever medicine. He had been ready to jump to the worst conclusion when he closed the front door and heard that sound.

"I…" Syaoran looked like he had lost his entire ability to react. Then his eyes darted to his feet and the glass-strewn floor. "The glass–"

"Fuck the glass and don't move," Kurogane stormed into the dark kitchen, splinters crushed under his shoes as he approached the stupefied boy. Why hadn't he called for someone if he wanted a drink? He shouldn't even leave the bed, let alone walk around with that kind of fever.

"What happened?"

Fay appeared on the doorway, eye clouded in concern. He wasn't looking at Syaoran but at the mess on the floor. "Oh my."

"The kid broke a glass," Kurogane muttered and almost hit himself when the brown eyes looked away, hiding a flash of pain. Why was it that everything he said never failed to either offend or hurt someone? Swallowing the frustration, he reached down and hooked an arm around the boy's torso, ignoring the immediate tensing of the small body. "You should return to your bed."

Syaoran seemed to decide that he had created enough trouble and said nothing, only securing his arms around the ninja's neck. Kurogane tried not to think about a pair of legs that came around his waist and focused his attention on sidestepping the scraps of glass.

"I'll clean it up," Fay told him and for the first time in… probably ever, he looked at the kid and smiled slightly. "Don't worry, Syaoran-kun. I'll bring you some water later."

It was one of his fake smiles. Kurogane wasn't sure what to make of it and decided that he didn't want to know right now. He only nodded at the mage before leaving the kitchen with long, heavy strides. The boy felt light in his arms, his skin still too warm, and Kurogane was all too aware that he was still soaking wet from the rainstorm. He tried to move Syaoran away slightly, but his arms felt numb and the boy was warm and the fact that he was hiding his face in the crook of Kurogane's neck wasn't helping.

"I'm sorry."

The words were so faintly whispered that he thought he was only imagining it at first, but the warm breath ghosting over his skin was as real as hell and it made his hair stand on its end. There was suddenly a lump in his throat and Kurogane stopped, arms tightening a fraction around the boy.

"Why do you have to be so fucking miserable?" he accused. He almost didn't recognize his own voice – so raw, angry, hurt.

Syaoran stiffened in his arms, and then laughed, the sound weak, but harsh and painful. "Because I deserve to be?"

"You don't," Kurogane growled, trying to ignore the cold hand that was cruelly twisting his stomach. He kicked the bedroom door open and dumped the kid onto the bed, red eyes glaring. "Don't even think about it."

He didn't wait for any reaction before turning around and stripping his wet jacket and shirt, leaving only a relatively dry undershirt on. He could almost hate the kid – pathetic, pitiful, a disgrace to masculinity with that miserable look which practically wrenched Kurogane's heart out of his chest. The thing was he couldn't. He doubted he ever could, even if he wanted to.

"He was…" Syaoran's voice was small, echoing emptily in the room as the words trailed off, but it was enough to make Kurogane look at him again. The boy was staring at the yellow-glazed ceiling, the expression on his face wistful. Longing. Then he closed his eyes, and the ninja was expecting tears when he suddenly picked up his discarded sentence with newfound bitterness. "He was happy, right? Here, with the princess, you, everyone. And he made her happy."

_I couldn't._

The kid didn't even have to say it. It was written all over his face.

Kurogane felt his jaw clench. He marched to the bed and pinned Syaoran to the mattress, reveling at the shocked look his unexpected action reaped from the boy. The fever made him less guarded, less in control of his reactions, and it felt so fucking good to rip and shred that thick sheet of self-control.

"You are _not_ him," Kurogane hissed, blood sizzling in his veins. "Face it, kid, you two are different. He smiles and laughs. You brood and sulk. He fights for the princess. You fight for your-fucking-self. You can never be him."

It was too easy. He almost forgot what it was like – to kill, maim, destroy beyond repair. He still loved the feel of it, of life being choked out of a body through the tip of his sword, of the stale, pungent air of something dead under his feet. He could tell that he had just broken the boy. So completely. In more ways than one. And it felt so good that it made him sick.

"I…" the boy whispered, voice broken, eyes broken, "…just want to be accepted…"

His last barrier collapsed.

It was one of those urges, the ones that you could only get rid of by succumbing to it, and Kurogane acknowledged this as he pressed his mouth to the boy's, loving the way it gasp, open, surrender. So quickly. So utterly without restraint because there was none left in him. There was only need, sharp and crude and intense because void must be filled. The kid melted into his arms – perfectly, beautifully – and there was no escape.

He climbed to the bed, breaking the kiss for a moment, and immediately there were limbs clinging, latching onto him with what could only be interpreted as desperation. The kid was desperate, and the thought, for some sick, twisted reasons, satisfied him. He started kissing again, plundering, rubbing, taking everything he could. The kid accepted it all. Not silently. Vocally – whimpering, moaning, whining, and in some distant corner of his mind, Kurogane wondered if this was the first time he had ever experienced this kind of pleasure. The thought quickly faded to the realm of unimportance once the kid arched his hips and made a firm contact with his groin.

The noises coming out from that mouth was unbelievable. Kurogane swallowed his own groans and focused on pressing his knee between Syaoran's readily parted legs. It made him writhe and trash against him, hips twitching, hands grabbing at his shirt. Pleased with the uninhibited reaction, he left the boy's lips and started sucking on his neck, enjoying the full, unrestrained moans that now filled the room. The boy was trembling, pleasure lancing through his body as the man above him continued his not-so-gentle assault on his growing hardness.

"Kurogane-san…"

The sound of his name, whispered in that breathless, needy way, jerked him back to reality. He looked down, horror catching up with his lust-hazed mind as he realized what the hell he was doing. He flinched away, leaving the hot, yielding body, completely ignoring the kid's vehement protests at this sudden loss of contact.

He was just about to rape a fifteen-year-old kid. A fifteen-year-old kid he had just broken and smashed and screwed so badly.

Fuck.

And then, on that highest peak of his most screwed-up moment, he made one final, stupid-beyond-reckoning, definitely-stealing-the-crown mistake. He glanced back. Once. Just a little glance to the boy's flushed face and the ninja quite literally dropped his jaw because Syaoran was gasping openly, touching himself through his pants, hand rubbing insistently as he arched and moaned, desperately pleasuring himself.

The fever must have lowered his inhibitions, was the longest line of thought Kurogane could process before his brain stopped working completely. He found himself staring, gaping at this sinful picture of seduction. His own inhibitions – or what was left of them – disappeared faster than a group of bunny rabbits chased by the big bad wolf, and before he knew it, he already wrenched the boy's hand away, lowered the front part of his pants, and curled his fingers around the hard length.

The sharp, strangled hiss coming from the boy was enough of an encouragement. Kurogane continued to watch in some kind of trance as his hand worked a set of harsh, steady strokes. The kid's eyes were shut, brown locks plastered at the sides of his cheeks, and the look on his face was that of a pure, wild ecstasy. His fingers were twisting the sheets, and he kept bucking into the older man's hand, moaning softly, the sound pulsating through the air like a hot swirl.

And suddenly it wasn't so softly anymore. Syaoran was burying his face in the pillow, trying to muffle those obscene sounds leaving his mouth as his hips jerked and twisted frantically. Kurogane found himself following the erratic rhythm, loving the sheer discarding of control so unashamedly displayed before his eyes. He caught his name amidst a plethora of disjointed words and feverish mumblings, each syllable sending a dangerous jolt straight to his groin. Groaning, he increased his speed, pressure, everything he could give to bring the end closer because the boy was so desperately fucking his hand and moaning his name.

Kurogane's entire body shuddered when the kid came with a spasm, crying out loudly against his shoulder, hot fluid spilling again and again onto his palm, fingers, _everywhere_. For his whole fucking life, he had never known that his name could be said quite like that.

The next few moments were spent in quiet gasps and breathing calming down. His hand was still stroking slowly and Syaoran was still whimpering faintly, fingers clutching his arm in a painful death grip. Then reality came crashing down and the kid looked at him, eyes a blizzard of questions, uncertainty, fear, and something else that Kurogane didn't even want to know what. He chose to ignore it, pressing small kisses on the sweat-damped temple, murmuring encouragement to sleep. Sleep and forget every fucking thing because it's all one big, stupid, fucked-up delusion.

It wasn't until he had finished cleaning the boy and fixing his pants in some kind of mechanical haze that the real extent of what he had just done hit him like a hundreds-ton rock.

He practically ran out from the room, from the kid, from his own aching hardness, from the memory of what he had just done. It followed him nonetheless. He felt sick, disgusted, sicker than he had ever been his entire life.

Just outside, sitting on the floor next to the door was a tray with two drinking glasses on it, one filled with warm milk and the other plain water. Kurogane fought against an impulse to bury his fist in the wall or kick the tray, and headed to the front door, wanting nothing but the cold, numbing downpour to drown him.

He had screwed up. Totally. And any hope to repair was already too far beyond his reach.

_End_

_----- _

Okay, that obviously isn't finished. I'll try to do a sequel for this later after the finals. Oh God finals. Please review for now.


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